About 40 Russian protest leaders were frogmarched from a rally in front of the
Lubyanka secret police headquarters on Saturday in an apparent attempt to
decapitate the anti-Putin movement.

It was a modest but very modern protest. The blogger Alexei Navalny
Instagrammed pictures on his smartphone and tweeted out of his police paddy
wagon: “It’s crazy, I was just hauled out of the Freedom March.” Riot police
filmed rather than bludgeoned demonstrators. All those picked up, including
the activist Sergei Udaltsov and the former TV personality Ksenia Sobchak,
were released within hours.